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As London beckons for world basketball’s elite, Olympic glory is on the minds of many. On the men’s side of things, we have already seen nine nations qualify for the 12 team tournament, including everyone’s favourite, Dream Team USA.
18 men have been named to their preliminary roster including many from their 2008 gold-medal campaign. Most are expecting USA to successfully defend their gold.
However, despite the experts leaning towards a US gold medal finish, I question whether they will even be able to claim a medal of any colour.
USA enter the tournament on the back of their 2010 World Championship campaign which saw the side crowned champions in Turkey.
They boast a superstar line-up including five time NBA Champion Kobe Bryant, two time NBA MVP (possibly 3 after this season) LeBron James and the NBA Scoring Champion over the last 3 seasons Kevin Durant.
I could go on and help solidify everyone’s view that the USA will leave London with gold, but instead I am going to tell you why they will not claim a podium finish this year, for only the second time in their history.
The other was in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in which Team USA did not compete due to the American Boycott.
Firstly, team USA are too predictable. They compete with a very American brand of play which is all about finding or creating mismatches and then taking advantage of them through their much patented isolation basketball.
This is all good in the NBA where defensive players cannot stand in the key for over three seconds, but in international basketball they can.
Weak side defenders will camp in the key and help on all US drives to the basket. With a lack in ball movement, USA’s isolation-based offence will struggle to find the gaps to create high percentage plays making them very predictable and easy to defend.
USA’s only hope to put points on the board will as usual fall into the hands of their defence which they will rely heavily on to force turnovers so they can create fast break baskets.
Secondly, team USA lacks a post presence. It just seems that now days no American basketball players at any level can play in the post with their back to the basket.
Even the most prolific inside scorer in the NBA Dwight Howard is severely lacking in his post game, as all he does is simply try to overpower his opponents rather than out pivot them through smart footwork.
With Dwight Howard out injured, expect team USA to have zero presence down low as the likes of Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin and Kevin Love will look to square up and face the basket once receiving the ball in the post.
This will just make the offence of team USA even more predictable and easy to defend. As for what their defensive presence in the post has to offer only Tyson Chandler is a threat but only as a help defender. His wire-thin frame can be taken advantage of by the bigger bodies, for example Marc Gasol of Spain or our very own Aleks Maric.
Lastly, Team USA lack three-point shooters. Obviously when taking a look at the preliminary roster they do have plenty of players who can hit the three but they lack in the sharp shooter department.
Ryan Anderson, Jason Terry and Joe Johnson are players that well and truly fit into team USA but were overlooked.
Of the current roster only Kevin Durant, Eric Gordon, Kevin Love and James Harden fit the mould of sharp shooters, however of them, probably only Kevin Durant and Kevin Love will make the final roster.
This lack in shooters will again make them easy to defend as USA will be unable to spread the floor leading to defences to collapse and clog the key.
With all this said, Team USA will still be extremely difficult to stop due simply to the fact that they will possess the 12 most athletic players in the tournament.
The key to stopping them is simple. All other teams need to do is take care of the ball and limit turnovers, take advantage of USA’s lean frontline in the post and defensively either play a zone defence or a loose man aimed at taking away USA’s high percentage plays.
Teams that will be able to do this whom of which have already qualified include Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Australia. With four teams who can potentially beat them already qualified, the USA better hope the likes of Lithuania and Greece, who have beaten them in the past, do not also qualify.
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